The War of Independence

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE The Succession Problem.—Alexander III. was killed by a fall from his horse in March 1286. His two sons and his daughter had predeceased him and his only living descendant was his daughter's infant child, Margaret, daughter of Eric of Norway. Her age, her sex and her nationality would have combined to prevent the suc cession of the little Maid of Norway, if there had been any adult male claimant nearly related to the late king. But Alexander left neither brother, nephew nor cousin, and there was no living legiti mate descendant of any Scottish monarch later than David I. Of the three grandsons of David, two, Malcolm and William, had succeeded to the throne. The third, David, who had been given the English earldom of Huntingdon, had left a son and three daughters. The son had died without issue ; the eldest daughter had married an Anglo-Scottish baron, and her grandson (through her daughter, Devorguilla, the foundress of Balliol col lege at Oxford) was, by the theory of primogeniture, the direct heir to the Crown. But the rule of succession by primogeniture was not yet established either in Scotland or in England, and the claim of John Balliol was disputed by Robert Bruce, the son of the second daughter of David of Huntingdon. Bruce argued that a grandson, being closer in descent to the grandfather from whom the claim was derived, was his true representative, rather than a great-grandson who was separated from him by an additional gen eration. Years before, when Alexander II. was childless, Bruce had been recognized as heir presumptive, and the birth of Alex ander III. had deprived him of a chance which, in 1286, he held to have recurred. The Scots were thus faced by a choice between the minority of a baby girl who was the daughter of a foreign sovereign, and a civil war between two Scottish claimants. The nobles decided that the former was the lesser of the two evils, and the Great Council of Scottish tenants-in-chief, clerical and lay, appointed guardians to conduct the Government in the name of Margaret of Norway.

Agreement with England.

At first, it seemed as if the choice were to involve the country in both evils, for the Bruce party began to raise a rebellion, but Edward I. of England, a great-uncle of the baby queen, intervened to secure her throne. This intervention was welcome in Scotland; in the late king's minority, his father-in-law, Henry III., had taken part in Scottish politics, asserting no claim to overlordship, and describing himself as principal counsellor to the king of Scots. Edward I. similarly made no pretension to the right and duty of an overlord to act as guardian during a minority. The long continuance of peace with England, and the two centuries' tradition of the adoption of English speech, manners and institutions, made it natural for him to offer, and for the Scots to accept, a guarantee of the succession of the little Maid. Edward had, in fact, devised the statesmanlike scheme of a union of the two Crowns by the marriage of the heiress of Scotland to his son Edward (afterwards Edward II.). English, Scottish and Norwegian commissioners met to discuss the question, and in the summer of 1290, the Treaty of Birgham on-Tweed defined the conditions of the marriage. In proposing his scheme, and in the terms of the treaty, Edward showed every consideration for Scottish feelings, and it was provided that, after the marriage, and even after the succession of a son of the mar riage to both Crowns, the two kingdoms should remain separate organizations—doubtless Edward hoped that a union of the king doms would follow a union of the Crowns, but he was content to lay the foundations of that union. Further, it was agreed in the Treaty that, should there be no heir of the marriage, the Crown of Scotland was to revert to the proper heirs, and the kingdom of Scotland was to be "free in itself, without subjection, as it hath hitherto been." Any rights pertaining to the Crown of England were reserved, but these rights were neither asserted nor defined.